


In the Papaya

by imma_redshirt



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-18 09:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imma_redshirt/pseuds/imma_redshirt
Summary: Miguel was being lectured inside a giant papaya.Lectured. Inside a giantpapaya.If someone had told him that that was how he’d be spending part of Día de los Muertos, he would have burst out laughing because that just sounded ridiculous and absolutely impossible? What sort of fever dream weretheyhaving?But there he was. Inside a giant papaya. Being lectured. Aboutvitamins.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 175





	In the Papaya

**Author's Note:**

> Quick thing I wrote over a year ago, I think? I didn't really know how to end it so it's just like. Y'know, there.

Miguel was being lectured inside a giant papaya.

Lectured. Inside a giant _papaya._

If someone had told him that that was how he’d be spending part of Día de los Muertos, he would have burst out laughing because that just sounded ridiculous and absolutely impossible? What sort of fever dream were _they_ having?

But there he was. Inside a giant papaya. Being lectured. About _vitamins._

“What do you mean, you don’t take your vitamins?”

Miguel shrunk in on himself under mamá Imelda’s scrutinizing gaze. The whole family was watching him. He could see their shocked expressions in the little rays of light that stole into the papaya through holes in the paper mache. Even the Frida performers were watching him over his family’s heads, all squeezed together in the fruit, because apparently the base of a giant papaya could only comfortably hold so many Frida performers at once.

Tía Victoria, standing next to mamá Imelda, had one half of her false unibrow raised. Miguel had felt betrayed when she had said, right out of the blue as they waited for the Sunrise Spectacular to start, “Miguel, if you don’t believe vitamins are real, do you even _take_ your vitamins?”

Miguel had answered very nonchalantly “no” without thinking, without realizing the consequences that would come with that because it was just vitamins and he didn't see what the big deal was, and had immediately regretted his answer when the entire papaya went silent and he could _feel_ the eyes of his dead ancestors watching him.

“_Miguel,_” Imelda said, eyes narrowing in the single beam of light that fell across the top half of her face, and Miguel grinned nervously with a shrug.

“Uh, sometimes?” 

Gasps met him.

“I mean,” he stammered, “Most times! Mamá gives me one every morning! But, well, sometimes I forget?”

“Sometimes I forget” actually meant “I forget all the time.” He winced at the memory of seeing some weirdly shaped purple pill by his breakfast plate every morning, and leaving it there as he rushed off to school or to play with his friends or to take the last bit of eggs to Dante behind the house, _anything_ but actually having to take the vitamin because it tasted _terrible._

Rosa said drinking water after chewing the pill helped, but Miguel didn’t think testing that out was necessary when all he had to do was not take the pill at all. Or at the very least conveniently forget about it. And no _way_ was he taking the pills you swallow, have you seen the _size_ of those things?

“Vitamins are important,” Tía Victoria said, looking at him over her glasses like one of his teachers lecturing him in class. “For children _and_ adults.”

“Okay, but--”

“Does your mamá know you're not taking your vitamins?” Mamá Imelda asked. 

“Well--”

“Excuse me,” one of the Frida dancers said, and eight Riveras turned to look at her. “I know I’m not in this family, but before I died I was pharmacist, and I know that some of those vitamins aren’t as effective as you’d think--”

“If you are not in the family,” Mamá Imelda said through gritted teeth, “You are not in the _conversation.”_

“Ok ok,” Papá Héctor said, looking nervous when Mamá Imelda immediately shot a narrowed eyed glare at him. “Look, Miguel--what are you going to start doing once you return home?”

He waved one hand in a circle, like trying to prompt Miguel to say something, so Miguel frowned and said slowly, “... start taking my vitamins?”

“Every…?” Papá Héctor continued, trying hard to keep his eyes on Miguel while his wife continued to stare at him.

Miguel sighed and let his shoulders drop. “Every day.”

“There!” Héctor said, clapping his hands together once and turning around to grin at Imelda. “See, he’s going to start--uh, I, Imedla? Why are you staring at me like that?”

Everyone turned to look at Mamá Imelda now. Her unibrow was furrowed and she was glaring so hard at papá Héctor that Miguel was seriously concerned about his great-great-grandpa’s safety. Papá Héctor shrunk back as far as he could from her gaze. But since they were all stuck in the papaya, he couldn’t shrink back too much with papá Julio and tío Felipe standing right behind him.

“And _what,_” Mamá Imelda began, hands on her hips, “Right do you have to tell him to take care of himself?”

Silence fell in the papaya.

Mamá Imelda didn’t have to worry about not having enough room to move around, because everyone seemed to be able to make room for her without complaint when she raised a hand to point accusingly at papá Héctor. “When you can hardly take care of yourself?”

Papá Héctor blinked, and then jumped when mamá Imelda gestured sharply at his arm. 

“_Dime, _ when was the last time you had that looked at?”

“This?” Papá Héctor tapped the grey tape and shrugged lightly, looking at the dark wall of the papaya instead of at mamá Imelda. “I, ah, it’s been… a while, Imelda.”

“How long?” Mamá Imelda demanded.

“Years,” Papá Héctor said. He put a hand over the tape almost subconsciously and waved his free hand dismissively. “There’s not a lot I can do about it, you know? These sorts of injuries don’t really heal very well.”

Immediately, Miguel felt the tension in the giant fake fruit fall apart as mamá Imelda stood back, some of the anger gone from her eyes. Everyone was looking at her or papá Héctor, even the Frida dancers who seemed more interested in the drama happening in their midst than in the sounds of the crowd picking up outside. Papá Héctor may not have said "it won't heal because I'm being Forgotten" out loud, but the words felt like they were hanging in the air between every tightly packed Frida performer and Frida-disguised Rivera.

Tía Rosita had a hand over her mouth, looking at papá Héctor with sympathy, and tía Victoria frowned and crossed her arms. Tío Felipe and tío Oscar were looking between their sister and papá Héctor, faces blank, waiting for whatever came next.

Papá Julio looked uncomfortable, but that could have been because papá Héctor was almost bent backwards over him.

Seeming anxious with all the pairs of eyes watching him with varying amounts of discomfort and/or sympathy, papá Héctor said reassuringly, “It’s ok! It doesn’t hurt! Sometimes I even forget it’s there.”

“Well,” Mamá Imelda said stiffly, arms crossing in front of her like tía Victoria. “You are going to have that looked at by a good doctor when this is all over. Entiendes?”

The fact that she said “when” and not “if” lifted Miguel’s spirits. He looked at papá Héctor, one half of his unibrow raised, and grinned when papá Héctor nodded carefully, giving his wife a hesitant smile. 

“I’ll do my best.”

“You _will,_” Mamá Imelda said, voice stern, seemingly growing angry again, but before she could continue, a voice announced the beginning of the Sunrise Spectacular, and music began to play.

“Everyone get ready!” Papá Julio said, and they all began to shift around, until the Riveras were moved to the back end of the fruit and the performers got into position. Crouched together, listening to the music pick up, Miguel’s family was silent, and he wondered if they were all as nervous as he was.

Not that he was _really_ nervous. He felt angry, and determined, and kind of excited, and eager to help his family steal back what Ernesto had taken from them.

...but still. He was a _little_ nervous. Just a little.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he glanced back to see papá Héctor watching him nervously.

“Ready, mijo?”

Miguel grinned. “Yeah. Are you?”

He thought he saw mamá Imelda glance quickly at them before papá Héctor grinned and said “Of course!”

They shared one last grin before the Frida dancers began climbing out of the papaya, and the Riveras followed suit.

The vitamin issue was forgotten by everyone until a month later, when Dante flew between the worlds and brought a folded note to Miguel, with a short scribbled message: _VITAMINS._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
